Friday, July 27, 2012

I love the Olympics. A real international event of athletes gathering together in different places in the world for various sports events. I also love it when an "unknown" happens to win & those kind of unexpected results. It's anyone's game to win.
I do find the U.S. announcers to be arrogant & sometimes downright obnoxious. Sometimes I find myself declaring "I can't believe they just said that." Some basic manners would go a long way.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing the opening ceremony.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

"But here's the difference between the rest of the world and us: We have TWO Auroras that take place every single day of every single year! At least 24 Americans every day (8-9,000 a year) are killed by people with guns – and that doesn't count the ones accidentally killed by guns or who commit suicide with a gun. Count them and you can triple that number to over 25,000. That means the United States is responsible for over 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries combined. Considering that the people of those countries, as human beings, are no better or worse than any of us, well, then, why us? "

Our killing is not just historical (the slaughter of Indians and slaves and each other in a "civil" war). It is our current way of resolving whatever it is we're afraid of. It's invasion as foreign policy. Sure there's Iraq and Afghanistan – but we've been invaders since we "conquered the wild west" and now we're hooked so bad we don't even know where to invade (bin Laden wasn't hiding in Afghanistan, he was in Pakistan) or what to invade for (Saddam had zero weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with 9/11). We send our lower classes off to do the killing, and the rest of us who don't have a loved one over there don't spend a single minute of any given day thinking about the carnage. And now we send in remote pilotless planes to kill, planes that are being controlled by faceless men in a lush, air conditioned studio in suburban Las Vegas. It is madness.

2. We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear. What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Why are most of these guns in white suburban and rural homes? Maybe we should fix our race problem and our poverty problem (again, #1 in the industrialized world) and then maybe there would be fewer frustrated, frightened, angry people reaching for the gun in the drawer. Maybe we would take better care of each other (here's a good example of what I mean).

Those are my thoughts about Aurora and the violent country I am a citizen of. Like I said, I spelled it all out hereif you'd like to watch it or share it for free with others. All we're lacking here, my friends, is the courage and the resolve. I'm in if you are.

"That James Holmes is insane, few may doubt. Our gun laws are also insane, but many refuse to make the connection. The United States is one of few developed nations that accepts the notion of firearms in public hands.

The theory is that gun ownership makes us safer. That doesn't seem to be working out for us. The body count rises. In Chicago we have a murder wave going on. Gun ownership doesn't bring safety when both sides are shooting at each other. Nationally, most guns fired in homes kill people who live there, including children, and do not kill home invaders.

The death toll in Aurora only represented half the daily U.S. average in deaths by gunfire. In a year, guns murdered 468 people in Australia, England, Germany and in Canada put together, and 9,484 in the United States.

Here is a record of mass shootings in the United States since 2005. It is 62 pages long. It was compiled by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. I went to university with Jim Brady, and we were friends. He's spent the years since 1981 in a wheelchair. He was shot by John Hinckley, Jr., the flywheel who thought assassinating President Reagan would impress Jodie Foster. Of course he was crazy. I'll go out on a limb here and say James Holmes must have been crazy, too. When you think it is necessary for you to open fire and murder innocent people in a movie theater, what else does that make you?

True, there is no way we can defend ourselves against insane shooters. But I suspect Australia, England, Germany and Canada have about the same percentage of crazy people that we do. It's just that they can't get their hands on firearms so easily. Nor do they sell assault rifles over the counter in those nations."

There is no excuse for the propagation of these weapons. They are not guaranteed or protected by our constitution. If they were, then we could all run out and purchase a tank, a grenade launcher, a bazooka, a SCUD missile and a nuclear warhead. We could stockpile napalm and chemical weapons and bomb-making materials in our cellars under our guise of being a militia.

These weapons are military weapons. They belong in accountable hands, controlled hands and trained hands. They should not be in the hands of private citizens to be used against police, neighborhood intruders or people who don’t agree with you. These are the weapons that maniacs acquire to wreak murder and mayhem on innocents. They are not the same as handguns to help homeowners protect themselves from intruders. They are not the same as hunting rifles or sporting rifles. These weapons are designed for harm and death on big scales.

SO WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THEM? WHY DO YOU NOT, AT LEAST, AGREE TO SIT WITH REASONABLE PEOPLE FROM BOTH SIDES AND ASK HARD QUESTIONS AND LOOK AT HARD STATISTICS AND POSSIBLY MAKE SOME COMPROMISES FOR THE GREATER GOOD? SO THAT MOTHERS AND FATHERS AND CHILDREN ARE NOT SLAUGHTERED QUITE SO EASILY BY THESE MONSTERS? HOW CAN IT HURT TO STOP DEFENDING THESE THINGS AND AT LEAST CONSIDER HOW WE CAN ALL WORK TO TRY TO PREVENT ANOTHER DAY LIKE YESTERDAY?

We will not prevent every tragedy. We cannot stop every maniac. But we certainly have done ourselves no good by allowing these particular weapons to be acquired freely by just about anyone.

I’ll say it plainly – if someone wants these weapons, they intend to use them. And if they are willing to force others to “pry it from my cold, dead hand”, then they are probably planning on using them on people."

But seriously, our gun problem in the US is akin to the Chernobyl meltdown... ahem looks like we have a problem. Because, honestly, reasonable people wold have to admit that high powered weaponry available to the masses is not boding well in this country.

Ask any community that has endured a senseless mass murder& the families whose loved ones are deceased, or whose lives are forever changed. The first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem.

I'm sure somewhere in the 342 pages, and 57,896 words, there is a clause that says any threat to the President will be "taken seriously, & prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law". Indeed some middle school kid who wrote a very negative piece on then president G. W, Bush, had the FBI show up at her school to investigate & interrogate her. This kid was considered a viable threat-- even though she lived nowhere near the president, just having bd thoughts & expressing them out loud was enough to warrant an in-person investigation.

I came across this other variation of that same bumper sticker theme, that added "pro life" to the roster.

Is it just me, or is the gun facing the heart logos a disturbing layout?

Perhaps they did have it next to the "anti-Obama" logo but that had a bad implication & having the gun facing the crucifix "god" symbol was out of place as well. So they settled on the gun poised to shoot as the "pro-life" heart symbol.

The point is, here in the US, people are too comfortable with guns. They are too easy to access, and the "freedom" to arm one's self to the hilt, and potentially go out on a killing spree has been played out by teen aged kids in schools, young adults on College campuses, at a Congressperson in public to get public input, and now in a movie theater. This mindset emboldens anyone with violent tendencies to actually enact the violence.

Outlawing bumper stickers is not what I am advocating- we really need gun control laws, as average citizens have no need for military style AK 45 type, rapid fire weapons that can fire off a round of 100 bullets at a time.

The bumper stickers are a symptom of the mentality that has caused this country to become killing fields.

Paterno's coaching, tainted with the cover up, should not be immortalized with a statue in his honor.

They won the games, but lost their honor.

This is a win for the victims.

AP Reports:

"Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of 45 criminal counts for abusing 10 boys over a number of years*. A report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh concluded that the late coach Joe Paterno and three former administrators - President Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz - ''repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse.''

Emmert as recently as last week would not rule out the possibility of shutting down the Penn State football program in the wake of the scandal, adding that he had ''never seen anything as egregious.''

* Additional sexual abuse allegations, including some from his own adopted son, have exceeded the statute of limitations to prosecute.

The NCAA announced that it will levy ''corrective and punitive measures''

dis·clo·sure

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Evidence photo of George Zimmerman's gun, he used to shoot & kill Trayvon Martin

When faced with murder charges, what better time to invoke religion/god. George Zimmerman is out again, on bail-- now conducting interviews--- saying the night of the murder was "in god's plan". He does not regret carrying or using the gun.

Wow! Playing the "god card" to justify murder.

Memo to Zimmerman: Thou shalt not kill.

That's the official plan of God.

He prays for Trayvon's family, and must have been coached to make "sad faces".

His apology was that he was sorry this had to happen, and sorry that this divided the country.

He is sorry alright, but it is because he has had the cold, stark reality of what life behind bars is like- serving time for murder.

Worse is he said he would not have done anything different that night.

Really?

Maybe just waiting a few more minutes in his car, as he was told to do, so when the cops arrived, they could find out Trayvon Martin was just a kid walking in his Dad's neighborhood, and would still be alive today.

The bottom line is by Zimmerman going on TV, it allows him to say anything he wants, without any cross examination.

It gives him a way to taint a jury pool before legal proceedings begin.

Zimmerman declares he is not racist, and not a murderer.

I sure hope the prosecution presents years of previous 9-1-1 calls from Zimmerman making racial comments, and if he is not a murderer, why is Trayvon Martin dead?

Thursday, July 12, 2012

It is no big shocker that Mitt Romney was booed. What floors me are the clueless media reports:"It’s not clear if the audience was defending the president’s health-care reforms, or just didn’t like derogatory use of the Obama name. "

What should be clear is the notion that non- millionaire people (the majority), are being made to think that they must *choose one*. If you want jobs, then you must eliminate the healthcare program.

You certainly can't have both jobs AND healthcare.

Therein lies the whole problem with the Republican mindset. "I've got mine & that's all that matters".
I'm not fooled by his smug declaration either, jobs equal all kinds of goodies for the 1%ers.
Fracking, oil pipelines, kind of a "whatever it takes"- because a job is a job & we need them, no matter what.
They don't care if the earth is trashed, your tap water is flaming, or who breathes what downwind.
Because health risks & environmental hazards are considered to be acceptable trade offs to boost the economy. Problem is the genie can't be put back in the bottle.
If Mitt really cared about jobs, he would not have fired all those people back in the Bain Capitol days. I'll even take it a step further-- if Mitt really cared about this country, he would not stash his fortunes offshore & "legally" evade paying taxes.
He says he has nothing to hide, but fails to disclose just how much "nothing" he is not hiding.
You gain trust by giving facts & information, just saying "trust me", is abysmally not good enough.

"Mitt Romney was booed on Wednesday while speaking at the NAACP annual meeting in Houston. The moment occurred a little past the halfway mark of the presumptive GOP nominee’s address, when he talked about what he’d do to curb government spending.“I’m going to eliminate every nonessential expensive program I can find. That includes ‘Obamacare,’ ” said Romney.

The jeers started then, and Romney stopped speaking and let them roll on, standing with a fixed smile on his face for about 15 seconds. It’s not clear if the audience was defending the president’s health-care reforms, or just didn’t like derogatory use of the Obama name. "

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Monday, July 9, 2012

Sunday, July 8, 2012

4G LTE, Gorilla Glass, MotoCast, Super Amoled, water-repellent nanocoating, Ice Cream Sandwich, Mobile Hotspot capable. virtual QWERTY keyboard, Gingerbread, iOS, i Cloud, Bluetooth, Chargers, Docks, Display protectors, then there's apps & uploads, downloads, music files, camera specs, video, battery life, network capability.... Whew! It is a whole new lingo & I have no clue what the Gingerbread vs the Ice Cream sandwich operating systems offer, but is there such a thing as an i headache?No doubt there is probably an app for that!Oh! You may well need to take a class to make sure that you are smarter then your smart phone!Damn!

Friday, July 6, 2012

""Today's report shows the private sector clearly isn't 'doing fine' and that President Obama's policies have failed," Boehner wrote, making reference to a remark Obama made at a press conference in June.

The House Speaker also pointed to an upcoming vote on continuing the Bush-era tax cuts, which he said needed to be extended to help small businesses grow."

Of course it is tax cuts for the rich that the Republicans are fighting for.

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